All NHS acute hospital admissions should be recorded on computer systems that link detailed information on diagnoses and surgical procedures with patient characteristics such as age, sex and area of residence. The Department of Health's Statistics Division collates records into national data sets, and summary tables are available via their website (link) or upon application. Extracts of patient level records are also available upon application for specific analyses.

The analysis of hospital admissions related to illicit drug use is complicated. Primary diagnosis codes record the type of drug poisoning (in ICD10 these codes begin with T). In addition there should also be a code (starting with W, V, X or Y in ICD 10) pointing to the cause of the poisoning e.g. accidental, self-inflicted or purposely inflicted by another, however, the recording of these external causes is often incomplete. The majority of acute overdoses will be captured by these diagnoses and it includes overdoses from both legal and illegal drugs.

It is also possible that many people with drug poisoning do not get admitted to hospital, as many will be treated within the casualty department. Data from the Office for National Statistics also suggest that roughly 80% of deaths from accidental poisonings occur in the home, 6% in the street and 4% in public buildings (10), all of these will not have been admitted to hospital before death.

In addition, many admissions related to the misuse of drugs, that are not overdoses, will be coded to mental and behavioural disorders due to the use of drugs (ICD10 F11-F19). We have looked at admissions from both drug poisoning and drug misuse in this section.

Date	Title	Format	View
28 Feb 2006	Admissions to Hospital due to Drug Misuse and Drug Poisoning, Borough Level, 2002/03 - 2006/07
8 Oct 2004	Map of Age Standardised Admission Rates Due to Drug Misuse, Borough Level, 2000/01 - 2002/03
8 Oct 2004	Map of Age Standardised Admission Rates Due to Drug Poisoning, Borough Level, 2000/01 - 2002/03

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• The number of admissions due to drug misuse and poisoning rose slightly over the four year period from 6404 in 2000/01 to 8918 in 2003/04 (Table G1).
• The number of admissions due to drug misuse increased from 1009 to 1358 over the four year period, although the percentage of admissions due to drug misuse remained stable at approximately 15.5% (Table G1).
• The majority of admissions due to drug misuse were male (70%), whereas the majority of admissions due to drug poisoning were female (61%). The percentages remained approximately stable across the four year period.
• The highest number of admissions for drug misuse were aged between 25 and 34 (36% of the total) whereas the highest proportion of admissions due to drug poisoning were in the under 25 age group (35% of the total). These trends were seen in both males and females in each fiscal year (Table G2)
• The age standardised admission rates for drug misuse were higher in each fiscal year in Inner London compared to Outer London. 13.7 versus 9.9, 14.8 versus 11.5, 15.4 versus 13.7, and 22.3 versus 18.4 for 2000/01, 2001/02, 2002/03 and 2003/04 respectively. A similar pattern was seen for drug poisoning (Tables G3 and G4).
• The number of males and females admitted for drug misuse related to opioids has increased over the four year period from 293 males and 138 females in 2000/01 to 324 males and 166 females in 2003/04 (Table G5).
• Across the four year period, between 46% and 62% of those admitted to hospital due to drug misuse related to opioids were resident in the South East London Strategic Health Authority area (Table G6).
• Admissions to hospital for drug misuse and drug poisoning made up approximately 0.5% of the total number of admissions to hospital for London residents over the four year period.
• 10 boroughs had age standardised admission rates for drug poisoning that were more than 10% higher than the London rate for 2000/01 to 2002/03 combined. 7 of these were found in Inner London, the others being Waltham Forest, Barking and Dagenham, and Havering (Map G7).
• 7 boroughs had age standardised admission rates for drug misuse that were more than 10% higher than the London rate for 2000/01 to 2002/03 combined. Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Lambeth and Wandsworth in Inner London, and Greenwich, Kingston and Sutton in Outer London (Map G8).